This Hole Has Been Road to Ruin for Some

For the 27th time, the British Open will be played next week on the Old Course at St. Andrews, at what’s considered the home of golf, so to celebrate the occasion, they’ve made some changes at the old place.

You simply must know your way around, because to do well on the Old Course, it’s a vital part of the strategy to be on a first-name basis with the, well, landmarks. Sometimes, their names sound funny, but everyone knows they’re not nice at all.

The tee at the second hole has been moved back 40 yards and to the right into an unused area of the Himalayas putting green, thus bringing Cheape’s bunker into play. The fourth and 12th are longer and at the 13th, the carry over the Coffins bunkers has been increased from 250 yards to 285 yards.

Also, the 14th has picked up an extra 37 yards to make it 618 yards -- the longest hole in British Open history -- which brings the Beardies bunkers and the Hell bunker back into play.

Add it all up, and the five new tees have increased the length of the Old Course by 164 yards to 7,279 yards, which should make all the fans of the Himalayas, Cheape’s, Beardies and Hell extremely pleased.

Meanwhile, the most famous hole on the course got tweaked too, only it didn’t get longer, it just got tougher. That would be the 455-yard 17th, known not only as one of the most difficult par-fours in golf, but also by its simple name -- the Road Hole.

Most golf fans and all the players are well aware of the Road Hole, so named because there’s an asphalt road that runs along the back of the green and a stone wall along the road.

Long ago, it used to be the main road to nearby Cupar, but now it’s just the road to ruin.

This being golf and in particular, golf in Scotland, things may not always be as they appear. The most famous feature of the Road Hole is not the road, it’s the bunker that protects the front of the green.

Roughly the size of a flying saucer and nearly as deep as Loch Ness, the bunker was the object of a study by the Links Trust, which figured out that the bunker had generally shifted away from the green over the years. The Links Trust decided to alter the bunker for this year’s tournament and extend the sandy grave about four feet to the right.

What these new dimensions will mean is anybody’s guess, but here’s one: pain, suffering, double bogeys.

Actually, none of that stuff is new at the Road Hole.

The last time the Open was played at the Old Course was 2000, when Tiger Woods won by eight shots, but he had a battle on his hands on the last day when David Duval closed to within three shots after seven holes. Duval, playing in the same group as Woods, was still within faint striking distance until he had to play the Road Hole.

It might just as well have been the Black Hole for Duval, because his chances disappeared in the bunker. One, two, three, that’s how many shots Duval needed to get out of the bunker at the Road Hole, where he recorded a quadruple-bogey eight.

That wasn’t a record. That honor belongs to Tommy Nakajima, who actually had a birdie putt at the 17th in 1978, but his ball veered left and dropped into the bunker. He took four shots to clear the bunker and wound up with a nine.

He also wound up with a new name for the bunker -- the “Sands of Nakajima.”

Often, it’s not even the bunker’s fault when bad things happen at the Road Hole. To begin with, to play the hole correctly, you have to hit your tee shot over an old, black railway shed at one end of the Old Course Hotel (the players aim to loft it over the “o” in “Course”).

Sometimes players misfire and their balls find a window of the hotel and rattle around inside somebody’s room in a perverse version of room service.

And if it’s not the blind tee shot over the shed or the ball-devouring bunker or the asphalt road, then it’s the five-foot stone wall. This is what Tom Watson found out when he was on the verge of victory in 1984, but knocked his second shot against the wall.

While Seve Ballesteros was busy making birdie at the 18th, all Watson could do was punch a rocky seven-iron to 30 feet, then two-putt for a bogey. Ballesteros, who won, had two-putted from 25 feet to par the 17th -- the only time he made par on the hole in four days.

Arnold Palmer was 48 when he made a charge at the 1978 title, but he had a wreck at the Road Hole. He knocked his tee shot out of bounds, and eventually wound up in the bunker. Palmer made a triple-bogey seven, but at least he got to visit just about every part of the hole and inspect it personally.

Maybe something unfunny will happen again next week at the Road Hole. If it does, no one should be surprised. In fact, there’s a warning painted in black on a sign hanging on a chain that runs across the road behind the 17th green.

Danger. Golf in Progress.

There will be no argument.